How to Use Windows

From the arcade heyday of titles such as Atari’s Pole Position and Yu Suzuki’s sublime OutRun for Sega back in the 1980s, driving games have always been a mainstay genre in the videogame business. 2010 is certainly set to be a golden year for petrolhead gamers and fans of virtual racing, with Polyphony Digital’s epic PS3 title Gran Turismo 5 finally moving into view later this year. Bizarre Creations (of Project Gotham Racing fame) is currently putting the final touches to its intriguing arcade battle driving game Blur (due later this summer) and superbike fans are being treated to the latest critically-acclaimed MotoGP 09/10 from Capcom later this month. MOTO GP 09/10: Realistic track creation is at the heart of Capcom’s latest racing game TechRadar spoke with a number of the leading developers in the genre, including Gateshead-based Eutechnyx (most recently known for last year’s SuperCar Challenge ) and some of those name-checked above, to find out more about the latest technologies and development tricks and techniques that go into making ever-more realistic circuits and track-side environments. Capcom’s new Moto GP title features highly advanced dynamic lighting and some incredible post processing effects

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An American company, despite the Oriental-sounding name, Sumiko has been known for many years as a purveyor of high-end cartridges at typically slightly less than high-end prices. The Blackbird is very much in that tradition with a specification that wouldn’t look out of place in a dearer cartridge. The most obvious feature that marks it out as high end, however, is the construction, which with its complete lack of body and protection fairly screams ‘enthusiast product’. It’s all been done for a reason, of course. The ills of a resonant outer body on a cartridge have been a topic of audiophile conversation since at least the mid-1980s, when enthusiasts used to fill cartridge bodies with resin

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These days few hi-fi manufacturers want to be caught without an iPod dock or two in the catalogue. The Arcam irDock is one of a pair in Arcam’s current range, both notionally part of the ‘Solo’ range and, as such, twinned with the Solo and Solo Mini all-in-one systems. There’s absolutely no reason, however, to discount the possibility of using it on its own with any amp and speakers – and indeed TV or monitor, since it has video outputs. You can watch your favourite flick from a suitable iPod or just relay the cover art from the iPod’s tiny screen. You do get slightly more integrated functionality by connecting to a Solo with the supplied RS232 cable, but as a standalone unit, with its little dedicated remote control, it does just fine.

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Windows Vista introduced us to the Reliability and Performance Monitor utility to help keep track of hardware and software crashes. It’s now a stand alone utility in Windows 7 and we will take a look at how to access and use it. Reliability and Performance Monitor in Vista In Vista the Reliability Monitor was part of the Reliability and Performance Monitor utility.

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If you’re still using Internet Explorer and Windows XP, you might have encountered a problem where you unchecked the box for “Always ask before opening this type of file”, and now you can’t get it back anymore. Luckily it’s an easy fix. If you aren’t sure what we mean, we’re referring to this dialog: If you want to do the same thing in Windows Vista, we’ve also got you covered there with a registry hack . Reset Open/Save Dialog Choice in Windows XP Open up a file explorer dialog and head towards Tools –> Folder Options. Then use the File Types tab page to figure out the type of the file that you are trying to reset this for.

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You read that right. HP has generously donated one of their slick new ENVY 13 notebooks for us to give away. Announced two months ago, the ENVY 13 is a powerful workhorse packed into a stunning chassis, with the specs to prove it. The model we’re giving away is equipped with a 2.13 Core 2 Duo, 5GB of DDR3 SDRAM, a 250GB HD, and sports a beautiful 13.1″ LED screen (1600×900 resolution).

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